From Wartime Instruction to Superpower Cinema

Author(s):  
Noah Tsika

This chapter, by Noah Tsika, considers the U.S. military’s cultivation of documentary as a form of “useful cinema,” arguing that the institution’s emphasis on formal hybridity and pedagogic adaptability, far from being a neutral reflection of the contingencies of wartime, was, in fact, strategic—part of a broader attempt to naturalize the large-scale military and ensure its permanence. Even when the military identified them as timely documents designed to catalyze an Allied victory, many World War II training films were meant to last—to remain useful tools of the American military-industrial state, whether screened in conjunction with the public-education initiatives of local newspapers or excerpted for use in private manufacturing plants.

Daedalus ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 142 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew A. Hill ◽  
Leonard Wong ◽  
Stephen J. Gerras

In recent decades, the U.S. military has enjoyed high levels of public confidence. We argue that the rise (and sustainment) of public confidence in the military reflects two phenomena. First, the public has a high regard for the military and its mission, arising from a shift to a professional (nonconscript) force that is perceived to be competent, fair, and accountable. Second, the public has little fear of military abuses in the domestic arena, owing chiefly to the reduced domestic presence of the military in the post – World War II era, with less emphasis on the physical defense of the homeland; and to the military's careful cultivation of an apolitical culture since Vietnam. We conclude with a brief discussion of the military's efforts to develop and encourage public-mindedness among its members, and the challenges to replicating the military approach in other institutional settings.


Author(s):  
Robert F. Jefferson

The history of the African American military experience in World War II tends to revolve around two central questions: How did World War II and American racism shape the black experience in the American military? And how did black GIs reshape the parameters of their wartime experiences? From the mid-1920s through the Great Depression years of the 1930s, military planners evaluated the performance of black soldiers in World War I while trying to ascertain their presence in future wars. However, quite often their discussions about African American servicemen in the military establishment were deeply moored in the traditions, customs, and practices of American racism, racist stereotypes, and innuendo. Simultaneously, African American leaders and their allies waged a relentless battle to secure the future presence of the uniformed men and women who would serve in the nation’s military. Through their exercise of voting rights, threats of protest demonstration, litigation, and White House lobbying from 1939 through 1942, civil rights advocates and their affiliates managed to obtain some minor concessions from the military establishment. But the military’s stubborn adherence to a policy barring black and white soldiers from serving in the same units continued through the rest of the war. Between 1943 and 1945, black GIs faced white officer hostility, civilian antagonism, and military police brutality while undergoing military training throughout the country. Similarly, African American servicewomen faced systemic racism and sexism in the military during the period. Throughout various stages of the American war effort, black civil rights groups, the press, and their allies mounted the opening salvoes in the battle to protect and defend the wellbeing of black soldiers in uniform. While serving on the battlefields of World War II, fighting African American GIs became foot soldiers in the wider struggles against tyranny abroad. After returning home in 1945, black World War II-era activists such as Daisy Lampkin and Ruby Hurley, and ex-servicemen and women, laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement.


2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 350-352
Author(s):  
Pamela M. Potter

The impetus among Germany's cultural elite to mark the end of World War II as a “zero hour” has been analyzed mainly as a German phenomenon, with considerably less attention to the role of the occupying forces in fostering that mentality. Settling Scores offers a long-awaited analysis of the American Military Government's precarious navigation in the music world, one of the most sensitive cultural areas for both the conquerors and the conquered. Most histories of twentieth-century German music and culture suffer from a basic misunderstanding of this tumultuous time and uncritically accept many of the prejudices it engendered. As this study demonstrates, the notion of a musical “zero hour” is one such misconception, for the imperfect projects of denazification and reeducation left the musical world of the post-war period largely indistinguishable from its pre-war existence. Based on thorough archival research, interviews with eyewitnesses, and a wide range of literature, this highly readable and engaging history reveals in detail the successes and failures of the Military Government's ambitious agenda to root out the musical “Führers” of the Third Reich and to transform music from a tool of nationalist aggression to one of democratic tolerance.


Author(s):  
Sueyoung Park-Primiano

This chapter, by S. Park-Primiano, examines the use of noncommercial films by the U.S. military to facilitate its diverse roles during its occupation of South Korea in the aftermath of World War II. Used by the American Military Government in Korea, educational films aided the U.S. military's efforts to Americanize the Korean population and combat Communism. Films were also used to inform and rally support for its policy in Korea from American military and civilian personnel at home as well as abroad. For this purpose, the U.S. military sought cooperation from and enlisted the assistance of Korean filmmakers in the production of films about Korean culture and history that challenge any straightforward interpretation of Americanization or a unidirectional influence. Moreover, such conflicting efforts had a long-lasting effect in South Korea. It was a practice that was continued by the succeeding information apparatus of the U.S. State Department and the United Nations during the Korean War and beyond to further expose the need for a closer examination of U.S. control of the Korean cultural imaginary.


Author(s):  
Haidee Wasson

This chapter, by Haidee Wasson, addresses the development and use of portable film projectors by the American military during World War II and after. It examines the close ties to the technological wing of the American film industry and situates the innovation and use of film projectors in the context of ongoing experiments with projectors, projection, and film viewing within the armed services. This includes a discussion of standard operating equipment that became widely integrated into military operations as well as more specialized devices: gunnery trainers, consoles, data analyzers, and dynamic projection devices that made moving images into elastic, animated performance pieces. This chapter demonstrates that the military developed an expansive, global viewing platform that normalized film presentation and viewing within a wide range of military activities. This was an unprecedented use of portable film technology, and it helped to catalyze its postwar proliferation in military and civilian life thereafter.


Author(s):  
Howard G. Wilshire ◽  
Richard W. Hazlett ◽  
Jane E. Nielson

Since 1900, United States troops have fought in more foreign conflicts than any other nation on Earth. Most Americans supported those actions, believing that they would keep the scourge of war far from our homes. But the strategy seems to have failed—it certainly did not prevent terror attacks against the U.S. mainland. The savage Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the 11 September 2001 (9/11) attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. were not the first to inflict war damage in America’s 48 contiguous states, however—nor were they the first warlike actions to harm innocent citizens since the Civil War. Paradoxically, making war abroad has always required practicing warfare in our own back yards. Today’s large, mechanized military training exercises have degraded U.S. soils, water supplies, and wildlife habitats in the same ways that the real wars affected war-torn lands far away. The saddest fact of all is that the deadly components of some weapons in the U.S. arsenal never found use in foreign wars but have attacked U.S. citizens in their own homes and communities. The relatively egalitarian universal service of World War II left a whole generation of Americans with nostalgia and reverence for military service. Many of us, perhaps the majority, might argue that human and environmental sacrifices are the price we must be willing to pay to protect our interests and future security. A current political philosophy proposes that the United States must even start foreign wars to protect Americans and their homes. But Americans are not fully aware of all the past sacrifices—and what we don’t know can hurt us. Even decades-old impacts from military training still degrade land and contaminate air and water, particularly in the arid western states, and will continue to do so far into the future. Exploded and unexploded bombs, mines, and shells (“ordnance,” in military terms) and haphazard disposal sites still litter former training lands in western states. And large portions of the western United States remain playgrounds for war games, subject to large-scale, highly mechanized military operations for maintaining combat readiness and projecting American power abroad.


Author(s):  
Joseph T. Glatthaar

American Military History: A Very Short Introduction outlines the forces shaping the American military for the past 400 years. Since the colonial period, the United States has struggled to balance standing armed forces with citizen soldiers and sailors. Technological developments and two world wars forced the military to embrace professionalism and its increased obligations. The United States emerged from World War II in a strong position but failed to recognize the limits of its power, a legacy that some might say continues. Recent wars highlight some of the problems of a volunteer-dominated force. To succeed, the American military needs improved communication, understanding, and support.


2009 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin R. Bates

This essay offers an analysis of the circulation of World War II and Holocaust analogies in discourses about American military involvement in Kosovo. The essay argues that the World War II/Holocaust analogy provided the public with a new vocabulary for understanding the situation in Kosovo. The essay uses Bill Clinton’s speeches about Kosovo during the first week of American intervention as a representative anecdote for discussing the analogy and its rhetorical force. The essay then probes the circulation of the analogy in other governmental, media, and public opinion outlets. By comparing Kosovo 1999 to Europe 1945, the analogy offers descriptive and prescriptive reasons for American involvement that encourage public approval of military intervention. The essay offers conclusions and implications of this analysis for the understanding of the relationships among rhetoric, public opinion, and international conflict.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 169
Author(s):  
Felix Barbosa Carreiro

Cabe ao Estado garantir o direito a uma educação pública com qualidade socialmente referenciada. A julgar pelos indicadores educacionais publicados a partir dos resultados do Índice de Desenvolvimento da Educação Básica (Ideb), esse direito, no que se refere ao acesso, à permanência e ao sucesso escolar dos alunos que frequentam as escolas públicas, não está sendo sufi cientemente garantido. Apontamos como causa desse fracasso escolar a inexistência de políticas públicas educacionais focadas na aprendizagem escolar. Vale lembrar que as escolas públicas que apresentam o Ideb para além da meta, não significam necessariamente qualidade da educação. Reconhecemos que as avaliações em larga escala têm a potencialidade de subsidiar as políticas em educação com vistas à melhoria dos indicadores de qualidade do ensino e da aprendizagem, sobretudo quando os resultados são problematizados e sistematizados pelos sistemas educacionais e pelas escolas. Compreendemos que a qualidade na educação pública implica a efetivação da aprendizagem, ou seja, que o aluno aprenda, seja aprovado tenha garantido um futuro promissor. No contexto de uma escola pública de orientação emancipadora, é preciso que algumas condições objetivas sejam satisfeitas, a saber: gestão escolar democrática, compromisso docente com a escola pública, razoabilidade da infraestrutura escolar, materiais pedagógicos adequados consolidação das mediações escolares de participação.Palavras-chave: Qualidade. Educação. Escola pública.Elements for a public education with social qualityABSTRACTIt is the State’s responsibility to ensure the right of a public education with quality socially acknowledged. Judging by the educational indicators published as from The Brazilian Education Development Index (Ideb), this right, in relation to the access, the stay, and the school success of the students that attend the public schools, are not being suffi ciently guaranteed. We point as the cause of this school failure the lack of educational public policies focused in school learning. It is worth remembering that the public schools that present the Ideb above the target do not necessarily mean educational quality. We recognize that the evaluations of large scale have the potential of subsidizing the policies in education in order to the improvement of learning and teaching quality indicators, mainly when the results are questioned and systematized by the educational systems and the schools. We understand the quality in public education implies the learning realization, in other words, that the student learn, can be approved, and ensure a promising future. In the context of a public school with na emancipating orientation, it is necessary that some objective conditions must be satisfied, such as a democratic school management, teaching commitment with the public school, the reasonableness of the school infrastructure, appropriate teaching materials, and the consolidation of the educational mediations of the participation.Keywords: Quality. Education. Public School.Elementos para una educación pública con calidad socialRESUMENPuede el Estado garantizar el derecho a una educación pública con calidad socialmente valorada. A juzgar por los indicadores educacionales publicados a partir de los resultados del Índice de Desarrollo de la Educación Básica (IDEB), ese derecho, en lo que se refi ere al acceso, a la permanencia y al éxito escolar de los alumnos que frecuentan las escuelas públicas, no está siendo suficientemente garantizado. Apuntamos como causa de ese fracaso escolar a la inexistencia de políticas públicas educacionales enfocadas en el aprendizaje escolar. Es preciso recordar que las escuelas públicas que presentan el IDEB como meta, no significa necesariamente calidad de educación. Reconocemos que las evaluaciones a gran escala tienen la potencialidade de subsidiar las políticas de educación con vistas a el mejoramiento de los indicadores de calidad de la enseñanza y del aprendizaje, sobretodo cuando los resultados son planteados y sistematizados por los sistemas educacionales y por las escuelas. Comprendemos que la calidad de la educación pública implica la efectividad del aprendizaje, osea, que el alumno aprenda, sea aprobado y tenga garantizado un futuro prometedor. En el contexto de una escuela pública de orientación emancipadora, es preciso que algunas condiciones objetivas sean satisfechas, a saber: gestión escolar, infraestructura escolar, materiales pedagógicos adecuados, consolidación de las mediaciones escolares de participación.Palabras Clave: Calidad, Educación, Escuela Pública.


Author(s):  
Noah Tsika

Focusing on World War II and its immediate aftermath, this chapter offers a genealogy of a particular documentary tendency, one tied to the concurrent rise of military psychiatry and of the military-industrial state. As the psychiatric treatment of combat-traumatized soldiers gained greater institutional and cultural visibility, so did particular techniques associated with—but scarcely limited to—documentary film. This chapter looks at some of the subjectivities—some of the “private visions” and “careerist goals”—of military psychiatrists and other psychological experts whose influence is abundantly evident in a range of “documentary endeavors,” including those carried out (often simultaneously) by Hollywood studios and various military filmmaking outfits, from the Signal Corps Photographic Center to the Training Films and Motion Picture Branch of the Bureau of Aeronautics.


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